


Confirm Deletion

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Loss of Identity, Mindwiping, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 22:00:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6826372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wants to not remember. / It doesn't want anything at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Confirm Deletion

**Author's Note:**

> Standard warning for Winter Soldier and everything wiping/programming entails. Erasure of identity as plot point.
> 
> (I cannot believe this is how I got back into fic writing.)
> 
> Do not expect this to be happy.

_Erase._

It doesn’t think that. It thinks what it’s told to think, and carries on from there.

_Erase._

Sometimes he remembers that, before they wipe him. He sees the chair and for a moment thinks, Good.

Take this away. He doesn’t want this. The mess in his head is no good to anyone. No good to him; no good to them. Much easier this way. He might not remember anything, but he knows that if he did, he would only hurt.

The words take everything away. The words take him away.

_Erase._

‘Following orders’ conveys too much; suggests choosing to do so. It obeys because there’s nothing else. What else would there be?

_Erase._

There are a couple of missions when he remembers. It’s out too long, and suddenly he thinks in pronouns. He prefers certain types of foods over others; dislikes the cold (ridiculous); feels his face reshape itself in response to thoughts. He doesn’t like this. He can feel the world blurring at the edges, voices trying to leak through, and one in particular fighting to be heard.

That one makes him nervous. Edgy. Like if he could just hear that one voice, the handlers wouldn’t matter.

He tells them that. He knows what they’ll do. He knows they’ll fix it.

_Erase._

Objectively, it knows it is beaten bloody. It knows it has wounds which leave no scars, unless handlers want them to. It knows some pain is mission and some pain is punishment and some pain is amusement. It knows that pain is natural. 

_Erase._

His name is Bucky and he just wants to stop being that.

He drags Steve (the voice) out of the river (that goddamn voice) and just wants to be wiped. Not the everything else, but just the quiet. 

Instead he finds himself running. Get as far away from Steve’s voice as possible, from Steve, who makes it all so loud and confusing. Run from the people looking for him (doesn’t he want to go home), but most of all Steve. 

Write Steve onto paper; try to contain him. Worth a try. Write all the rest of it out. Maybe try to control that way, make it/him into something solid he can draw on when he chooses to (help). Make memories like a briefing.

_Erase._

A woman in Oslo whispers in his ear and it knows silence again. Follows the handler to a safe house; later on kills sixteen agents. The handler says only what to do, and the same three words over and over. 

It kills for her, and then he kills her.

He’s not entirely sure why. He rather liked not thinking for a bit.

_Erase._

The notebooks are all where he left them. He writes the three words down, but they don’t do anything. Just sit there on the page.

Suddenly he hates the sight of them; scribbles them out so hard he rips the page.

He tears out the page, then decides to try Eastern Europe. No idea why. He just does it.

_Erase?_

Being on the run is almost nice. Avoiding connections is like not existing. He lives, makes a space, writes his notebooks and even does work when he finds stealing less and less appealing. He can do so much without having to be a person.

He’d scribble out Steve but he doesn’t think that would work.

_Erase?_

Not just Steve’s voice: Steve. Deflection doesn’t work. Neither does escape, or capture. Steve is still there. And Bucky almost…likes that.

Enough that when the words come, he actually tries to fight it.

It

_Erase._

It doesn’t enjoy the fighting. Enjoyment isn’t what it is for. It fights because that is what it does. Fight; escape; regroup. 

Assassination is not primary objective. But the man with the voice is interfering, and that voice pulls at something else (him). Stop the voice.

Drowning works too.

_Erase._

His name is Bucky, and he’s nothing but trouble.

People used to say that to him all the time. Funny, because those people clearly didn’t realise Steve was the real trouble. Back then, anyway (and maybe a little bit now).

Steve is there, all the time, never stops talking and touching, and Bucky relearns smiling – not the not-existing smile, not the normal-person smile, real smiling. He’s out of practice, because Sam criticises his first few attempts (in his defence, not deliberate), but maybe.

Except no. He might find himself denying it (deny), but the clues are all there. Steve has a life here. Steve has his own people. Bucky makes problems for that. Steve has a woman, and friends, and Bucky is just a reminder. Steve needs to erase too, Bucky can see that. Memories and connections keep making Steve act differently. 

Bucky makes Steve ruin everything. Really that simple. And there’s a simple solution.

_Erase._

In the end, he might not erase the mind, but he does at least erase the self. Stops existing.

It feels nice.


End file.
